1 00:00:05,040 --> 00:00:07,840 Speaker 1: We all know about the problems of fake news and 2 00:00:07,880 --> 00:00:11,119 Speaker 1: the Internet, and many people are worried about it. But 3 00:00:11,440 --> 00:00:16,040 Speaker 1: is it possible that the Internet, on balance is better 4 00:00:16,480 --> 00:00:20,159 Speaker 1: for the dissemination of truth. What does this have to 5 00:00:20,200 --> 00:00:25,200 Speaker 1: do with Barbar Streisand's house, or Soviet agriculture, or Kenyan 6 00:00:25,400 --> 00:00:34,080 Speaker 1: elections or Twitter revolutions. Welcome to Intercosmos with me David Eagleman. 7 00:00:34,760 --> 00:00:38,199 Speaker 1: I'm a neuroscientist and an author at Stanford and in 8 00:00:38,240 --> 00:00:42,040 Speaker 1: these episodes we sail deeply into our three pound universe 9 00:00:42,080 --> 00:00:45,440 Speaker 1: to understand why and how our lives look the way 10 00:00:45,479 --> 00:00:59,400 Speaker 1: they do. Today's episode is about truth and misinformation and 11 00:00:59,440 --> 00:01:03,080 Speaker 1: the Internet. So in the last episode I discussed the 12 00:01:03,120 --> 00:01:06,600 Speaker 1: issue of truth, which has been at the center of 13 00:01:06,680 --> 00:01:11,240 Speaker 1: the dialogue about politics, about social media, about journalism for 14 00:01:11,280 --> 00:01:15,000 Speaker 1: many years now. And in twenty sixteen, a panel of 15 00:01:15,160 --> 00:01:18,319 Speaker 1: experts was interviewed and they said one of the grand 16 00:01:18,480 --> 00:01:22,960 Speaker 1: challenges was the issue of truth on the Internet. So 17 00:01:23,000 --> 00:01:25,279 Speaker 1: that's what we're going to talk about today. And twenty 18 00:01:25,319 --> 00:01:28,360 Speaker 1: sixteen also happened to be the year that the term 19 00:01:29,000 --> 00:01:34,000 Speaker 1: post truth was officially introduced to the Oxford English Dictionary. 20 00:01:34,440 --> 00:01:37,800 Speaker 1: So what does post truth mean? It was defined as 21 00:01:38,319 --> 00:01:44,679 Speaker 1: quote denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential 22 00:01:45,160 --> 00:01:52,520 Speaker 1: in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief. Now, 23 00:01:52,760 --> 00:01:57,240 Speaker 1: the fact that this got enenthrined by lexicographers at no 24 00:01:57,400 --> 00:02:01,080 Speaker 1: less of publication than the Oxford English Dictionary seemed to 25 00:02:01,160 --> 00:02:05,240 Speaker 1: clinch the argument that this was indeed a new phenomenon. 26 00:02:06,240 --> 00:02:10,320 Speaker 1: But to anyone with even a cursory knowledge of history, 27 00:02:10,880 --> 00:02:13,120 Speaker 1: this is a little strange. It is, to my mind, 28 00:02:13,480 --> 00:02:18,079 Speaker 1: the strangest romanticization to believe, for a second, that people 29 00:02:18,120 --> 00:02:23,640 Speaker 1: in earlier generations, in earlier centuries millennia, did not predicate 30 00:02:23,680 --> 00:02:28,239 Speaker 1: their actions on emotion and personal belief. Now, in the 31 00:02:28,320 --> 00:02:32,160 Speaker 1: last episode, I mentioned just a smattering of events that 32 00:02:32,240 --> 00:02:37,800 Speaker 1: defined the twentieth century, like Nazism in Germany and communism 33 00:02:37,840 --> 00:02:41,760 Speaker 1: in China and the USSR and fascism in Italy, and 34 00:02:41,800 --> 00:02:44,560 Speaker 1: the massacre of the Tutsi by the Hutu in Rwanda 35 00:02:44,960 --> 00:02:47,880 Speaker 1: and the Kame Rouge in Cambodia and the rape of 36 00:02:47,960 --> 00:02:51,160 Speaker 1: Nanking by the Japanese and on and on. And the 37 00:02:51,240 --> 00:02:54,160 Speaker 1: thing to notice is that this was all in the 38 00:02:54,240 --> 00:02:57,760 Speaker 1: last century, mere decades ago, And this was all pre 39 00:02:58,360 --> 00:03:04,960 Speaker 1: internet drop of fuel for these movements, which collectively killed 40 00:03:05,040 --> 00:03:09,959 Speaker 1: probably one hundred million people. Every drop of the fuel 41 00:03:10,400 --> 00:03:16,520 Speaker 1: was not driven by facts, but instead emotion and personal belief. 42 00:03:16,960 --> 00:03:19,680 Speaker 1: You don't get a Hutu to pick up a machete 43 00:03:19,720 --> 00:03:24,200 Speaker 1: against a Tutsi based on provable assertions. You get him 44 00:03:24,200 --> 00:03:28,520 Speaker 1: all worked up over emotionality. You don't get a Chinese 45 00:03:28,520 --> 00:03:32,359 Speaker 1: student to murder her professor in the Cultural Revolution with 46 00:03:32,400 --> 00:03:36,240 Speaker 1: some factual argument. You do this by convincing her that 47 00:03:36,280 --> 00:03:38,800 Speaker 1: this little red book is the greatest thing she can 48 00:03:38,840 --> 00:03:42,120 Speaker 1: aspire to. You don't ever get a young man to 49 00:03:42,280 --> 00:03:46,080 Speaker 1: murder his neighbor based on a provable scientific point, but 50 00:03:46,200 --> 00:03:52,640 Speaker 1: instead by emotion. So it's not only an illusion, but 51 00:03:52,680 --> 00:03:57,560 Speaker 1: it's a dellusion to believe that people used to operate 52 00:03:58,000 --> 00:04:02,280 Speaker 1: on the facts. Although I'm pointing to the twentieth century 53 00:04:02,320 --> 00:04:05,000 Speaker 1: to remind us that this was all happening just yesterday, 54 00:04:05,680 --> 00:04:08,560 Speaker 1: we only need to take a ten thousand foot view 55 00:04:08,600 --> 00:04:12,680 Speaker 1: of the centuries before to see how driven the world 56 00:04:12,760 --> 00:04:17,560 Speaker 1: has always been by emotion and personal belief over facts. 57 00:04:18,240 --> 00:04:21,720 Speaker 1: Just consider the European Wars of Religion, also known as 58 00:04:21,760 --> 00:04:25,760 Speaker 1: the Wars of Reformation, in which through the sixteenth and 59 00:04:25,839 --> 00:04:31,520 Speaker 1: seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, Catholics and Protestants murdered one another. 60 00:04:32,080 --> 00:04:34,640 Speaker 1: In just one piece of that war, called the Thirty 61 00:04:34,720 --> 00:04:39,920 Speaker 1: Years War. It's estimated that eight million people died. Now, 62 00:04:40,080 --> 00:04:42,440 Speaker 1: about two thirds of the world is not Christian, so 63 00:04:42,760 --> 00:04:46,440 Speaker 1: most people can't even see the difference between Catholics and 64 00:04:46,480 --> 00:04:50,839 Speaker 1: Protestants and those millions of deaths, all that human suffering. 65 00:04:50,839 --> 00:04:55,000 Speaker 1: It wasn't based on facts and truth, it was based 66 00:04:55,040 --> 00:05:00,040 Speaker 1: on emotion and personal belief. This is similar to the 67 00:05:00,120 --> 00:05:06,240 Speaker 1: bloody geopolitically defining wars between the Shia and the Sunni Muslims. 68 00:05:06,279 --> 00:05:09,240 Speaker 1: If you don't know the difference between Shia and Sunni, 69 00:05:09,640 --> 00:05:14,000 Speaker 1: it stems from a debate over succession after the prophet 70 00:05:14,080 --> 00:05:18,040 Speaker 1: Mohammad died. Some felt the leadership torch should pass two 71 00:05:18,120 --> 00:05:21,880 Speaker 1: qualified candidates, and others thought it should only go through 72 00:05:21,960 --> 00:05:26,800 Speaker 1: Mohammad's bloodline. So, for example, Saudi Arabia is Sunni, Iran 73 00:05:27,000 --> 00:05:30,120 Speaker 1: is Shia, and they can't get along. And these competing 74 00:05:30,240 --> 00:05:34,800 Speaker 1: views of succession have been in conflict for fourteen hundred 75 00:05:34,920 --> 00:05:38,719 Speaker 1: years and provides a lot of the explosive fuel in 76 00:05:38,760 --> 00:05:42,799 Speaker 1: the Middle East. You've got Syrian civil war over these lines. 77 00:05:42,839 --> 00:05:46,640 Speaker 1: You've got Iraq fracturing over this divide. You've got growing 78 00:05:46,720 --> 00:05:50,000 Speaker 1: fissures in a number of Gulf states. So if you 79 00:05:50,200 --> 00:05:53,320 Speaker 1: happen to be taking up arms in this battle between 80 00:05:53,640 --> 00:05:57,120 Speaker 1: Sunni and Shia, perhaps you come up with a story 81 00:05:57,200 --> 00:05:59,680 Speaker 1: to tell yourself. This is based in fact and not 82 00:05:59,760 --> 00:06:03,400 Speaker 1: base based on personal beliefs. There's a factual and correct 83 00:06:03,440 --> 00:06:07,360 Speaker 1: answer to the question of succession from a prophet, and 84 00:06:07,520 --> 00:06:11,200 Speaker 1: it's mysterious to you why other people can't see it 85 00:06:11,240 --> 00:06:14,240 Speaker 1: as clearly as you can, and for that matter, why 86 00:06:14,279 --> 00:06:17,719 Speaker 1: the overwhelming majority of the world doesn't even understand what 87 00:06:17,760 --> 00:06:21,640 Speaker 1: you're arguing about. Now. I'm not intending to criticize anyone's 88 00:06:21,720 --> 00:06:24,359 Speaker 1: beliefs here, but I am only intending to point out 89 00:06:24,680 --> 00:06:28,240 Speaker 1: that it is hallucinatory to believe that society used to 90 00:06:28,320 --> 00:06:31,960 Speaker 1: operate on facts, and then starting in twenty sixteen or so, 91 00:06:32,480 --> 00:06:36,760 Speaker 1: we stopped basing our behaviors on facts and sunk into 92 00:06:36,760 --> 00:06:40,520 Speaker 1: personal beliefs. This idea is so goofy. In fact, I 93 00:06:40,520 --> 00:06:43,200 Speaker 1: saw the Economist tweet some years ago on how we're 94 00:06:43,360 --> 00:06:47,279 Speaker 1: entering a post truth world, and a commenter to that 95 00:06:47,320 --> 00:06:50,359 Speaker 1: tweet wrote, why didn't you see this coming years ago? 96 00:06:50,800 --> 00:06:53,840 Speaker 1: And he cited what he thought were the obvious main causes. 97 00:06:53,880 --> 00:06:58,080 Speaker 1: He said, low basic education and lousy media. So his 98 00:06:58,240 --> 00:07:02,320 Speaker 1: argument was that given bad education and bad media, how 99 00:07:02,320 --> 00:07:06,880 Speaker 1: could we expect otherwise but to evolve into a cauldron 100 00:07:07,120 --> 00:07:12,120 Speaker 1: of disinformation. But of course, our system and reach of 101 00:07:12,280 --> 00:07:16,720 Speaker 1: education is better than it has ever been in the 102 00:07:16,760 --> 00:07:20,600 Speaker 1: history of the world. Around the entire globe, we've seen 103 00:07:21,120 --> 00:07:25,520 Speaker 1: increased government spending on education. We've seen increased access to 104 00:07:25,600 --> 00:07:29,240 Speaker 1: education for girls and women. We've seen improved quality of 105 00:07:29,360 --> 00:07:33,680 Speaker 1: education everywhere. I look these stats up recently. In eighteen twenty, 106 00:07:34,120 --> 00:07:38,640 Speaker 1: only seventeen percent of the population got even a basic education. 107 00:07:39,160 --> 00:07:42,680 Speaker 1: That's less than one in five people. By twenty twenty 108 00:07:42,720 --> 00:07:45,520 Speaker 1: the number was over eighty six percent, so it's almost 109 00:07:45,680 --> 00:07:49,520 Speaker 1: nine out of ten people worldwide. This is an incredible 110 00:07:49,600 --> 00:07:52,600 Speaker 1: change in two hundred years, and it just keeps going up. 111 00:07:53,240 --> 00:07:56,480 Speaker 1: And this is mostly for reasons of societies realizing the 112 00:07:56,520 --> 00:08:02,560 Speaker 1: importance of education, but also the helps enormously because it 113 00:08:02,680 --> 00:08:08,320 Speaker 1: translates to access. So anyway education has improved. It's the 114 00:08:08,400 --> 00:08:11,080 Speaker 1: number of kids in school, how long they stay in school, 115 00:08:11,120 --> 00:08:14,160 Speaker 1: the quality of the schooling, all that has been going up, 116 00:08:14,760 --> 00:08:18,480 Speaker 1: and this, of course is directly correlated with reduced poverty 117 00:08:18,880 --> 00:08:23,480 Speaker 1: and increased economic growth for a country and increased social stability. 118 00:08:24,360 --> 00:08:26,680 Speaker 1: If you're interested in these sorts of statistics, by the way, 119 00:08:26,720 --> 00:08:29,720 Speaker 1: you should read The Better Angels of Our Nature by 120 00:08:29,760 --> 00:08:32,840 Speaker 1: my colleague Stephen Pinker, who for some reason is one 121 00:08:32,880 --> 00:08:36,800 Speaker 1: of the few people making the clear statistical argument about 122 00:08:36,800 --> 00:08:41,440 Speaker 1: the massive improvements in the world. So let me return 123 00:08:41,440 --> 00:08:43,520 Speaker 1: to this guy on Twitter who said we should have 124 00:08:43,640 --> 00:08:46,760 Speaker 1: seen post truth coming in twenty sixteen because of our 125 00:08:46,880 --> 00:08:52,360 Speaker 1: terrible education. His argument clearly means something emotional to him, 126 00:08:52,760 --> 00:08:55,560 Speaker 1: but he doesn't have a leg to stand on factually. 127 00:08:56,000 --> 00:09:00,240 Speaker 1: And his second point was about lousy media. Now us 128 00:09:00,320 --> 00:09:02,080 Speaker 1: that in the last episode, So I'm not going to 129 00:09:02,080 --> 00:09:04,080 Speaker 1: spend too much time with it here except to say 130 00:09:04,400 --> 00:09:09,000 Speaker 1: that people seem to hold an illusion that media used 131 00:09:09,040 --> 00:09:12,120 Speaker 1: to be very good. Even very smart people say things 132 00:09:12,120 --> 00:09:14,760 Speaker 1: to me like, well, back in my day there were 133 00:09:14,800 --> 00:09:17,160 Speaker 1: only two or three news stations and we got all 134 00:09:17,200 --> 00:09:19,920 Speaker 1: our news in the same place. But as I argued 135 00:09:20,120 --> 00:09:23,400 Speaker 1: in great detail in the last episode, the real story 136 00:09:23,520 --> 00:09:26,920 Speaker 1: is much more nuanced. People have always lived in their 137 00:09:27,040 --> 00:09:30,880 Speaker 1: echo chambers and gotten their opinions from their friends and 138 00:09:30,960 --> 00:09:35,079 Speaker 1: their neighbors and their family and their culture. And of course, 139 00:09:35,120 --> 00:09:39,240 Speaker 1: aside from the news stations, there were newspapers of every stripe, 140 00:09:39,280 --> 00:09:44,040 Speaker 1: and magazines of any political orientation, and pamphlets that would 141 00:09:44,040 --> 00:09:47,120 Speaker 1: show up in your mailbox that could have the most 142 00:09:47,240 --> 00:09:52,960 Speaker 1: extreme views imaginable. So there's nothing new about receiving misinformation 143 00:09:53,280 --> 00:09:58,520 Speaker 1: or disinformation. So remember that if we're asking the question 144 00:09:58,640 --> 00:10:03,440 Speaker 1: of whether something has degree rated about truthtelling, really try 145 00:10:03,440 --> 00:10:07,760 Speaker 1: to view history through this lens of the question, did 146 00:10:07,840 --> 00:10:11,600 Speaker 1: people used to tell the truth more than they do now? Now, 147 00:10:11,640 --> 00:10:13,600 Speaker 1: what I've set the table with so far is that 148 00:10:13,640 --> 00:10:17,600 Speaker 1: there's nothing new about not telling the truth, and about 149 00:10:17,880 --> 00:10:21,199 Speaker 1: swimming in the pool of our own beliefs and functioning 150 00:10:21,200 --> 00:10:24,400 Speaker 1: in our own echo chambers and taking up arms against 151 00:10:24,400 --> 00:10:27,400 Speaker 1: our neighbors who believe differently. But I want to be 152 00:10:27,520 --> 00:10:30,240 Speaker 1: super clear about something. By me pointing out that there's 153 00:10:30,280 --> 00:10:33,960 Speaker 1: nothing new about misinformation, please don't take that as me 154 00:10:34,080 --> 00:10:38,040 Speaker 1: saying that we shouldn't be fighting misinformation. We should fight 155 00:10:38,080 --> 00:10:42,439 Speaker 1: it tooth and nail. We should constantly improve our society 156 00:10:42,480 --> 00:10:46,800 Speaker 1: that way. That is our obligation to try to maximize truthtelling. 157 00:10:47,559 --> 00:10:50,320 Speaker 1: But the reason for my historical rant is that it 158 00:10:50,480 --> 00:10:53,720 Speaker 1: helps us sharpen our focus on the question of this episode, 159 00:10:53,720 --> 00:10:57,200 Speaker 1: which is how much does the Internet have to do 160 00:10:57,280 --> 00:11:00,960 Speaker 1: with disinformation? To what degree is that the Internet's fault 161 00:11:01,280 --> 00:11:05,080 Speaker 1: that we see all sorts of misinformation and disinformation that 162 00:11:05,240 --> 00:11:08,760 Speaker 1: is predicated on emotional and personal belief rather than facts. 163 00:11:09,240 --> 00:11:14,120 Speaker 1: Has the Internet made things worse? The main arguments I 164 00:11:14,160 --> 00:11:17,240 Speaker 1: hear about how the Internet has made things worse seem 165 00:11:17,320 --> 00:11:20,880 Speaker 1: to depend on issues that have always been with us. First, 166 00:11:20,920 --> 00:11:24,760 Speaker 1: people complain that on the Internet, a story gets magnified 167 00:11:25,240 --> 00:11:28,840 Speaker 1: based more on the reaction it provokes than its truth value. 168 00:11:29,520 --> 00:11:34,000 Speaker 1: The idea is that misinformation often comes packaged with clickbaity 169 00:11:34,040 --> 00:11:38,880 Speaker 1: headlines in sensational stories that are designed to grab attention. 170 00:11:39,440 --> 00:11:41,839 Speaker 1: This can make it more likely that people will share 171 00:11:41,880 --> 00:11:45,079 Speaker 1: misinformation even if they're not sure that it's true, or 172 00:11:45,120 --> 00:11:48,320 Speaker 1: perhaps they don't even believe that it's true. But again, 173 00:11:48,840 --> 00:11:51,760 Speaker 1: note that this has always been the case. That's how 174 00:11:52,040 --> 00:11:55,400 Speaker 1: we get which trials in the past because it may 175 00:11:55,480 --> 00:11:57,120 Speaker 1: or may not be true, but I heard so and 176 00:11:57,160 --> 00:12:00,520 Speaker 1: SO say it, and it's a story too good to repeat, 177 00:12:00,559 --> 00:12:02,680 Speaker 1: so I'm going to pass that on. That's how we 178 00:12:02,720 --> 00:12:08,000 Speaker 1: get McCarthyism, where people are blacklisted based on accusations that 179 00:12:08,040 --> 00:12:11,920 Speaker 1: they are Communist sympathizers. That's how the Soviet Union gets 180 00:12:11,960 --> 00:12:16,040 Speaker 1: tens of millions of political executions because of the story 181 00:12:16,080 --> 00:12:18,679 Speaker 1: that so and so is not aligned with the party. 182 00:12:19,240 --> 00:12:23,240 Speaker 1: Perhaps no meaningful evidence is presented, but the accusation is 183 00:12:23,640 --> 00:12:28,440 Speaker 1: clickbaity and designed to get local attention, and it does. So. 184 00:12:28,520 --> 00:12:30,679 Speaker 1: Let me give a different example of how the Internet 185 00:12:30,880 --> 00:12:34,120 Speaker 1: can actually make truth a little harder to see, and 186 00:12:34,160 --> 00:12:37,800 Speaker 1: that has to do with the issue of sock puppeting. 187 00:12:38,240 --> 00:12:40,880 Speaker 1: This is setting up, let's say, a fake account to 188 00:12:40,960 --> 00:12:44,400 Speaker 1: pretend that you're on the other side of some issue. Now, 189 00:12:44,480 --> 00:12:46,400 Speaker 1: usually there's not a lot that you can do with this, 190 00:12:46,520 --> 00:12:49,520 Speaker 1: but sometimes it can have a big effect. For example, 191 00:12:50,160 --> 00:12:54,040 Speaker 1: when the United States withdrew all its troops from Afghanistan 192 00:12:54,120 --> 00:12:58,920 Speaker 1: in twenty and twenty one, the Taliban just leveraged basic 193 00:12:59,000 --> 00:13:04,440 Speaker 1: social media one to secure their takeover, which is on 194 00:13:04,600 --> 00:13:10,360 Speaker 1: social media. They pretended to be the Allied forces withdrawing 195 00:13:10,800 --> 00:13:15,000 Speaker 1: and they gave instructions to the population like, hey, everyone 196 00:13:15,080 --> 00:13:17,600 Speaker 1: should evacuate this town now there's about to be a 197 00:13:17,600 --> 00:13:21,320 Speaker 1: lot of bombing. And this way, when the Taliban rolled 198 00:13:21,360 --> 00:13:25,000 Speaker 1: into these towns, there were many fewer people there to 199 00:13:25,040 --> 00:13:28,720 Speaker 1: stand up and provide resistance. So what the Taliban had 200 00:13:28,800 --> 00:13:31,319 Speaker 1: done is called sock puppeting. In other words, they had 201 00:13:31,320 --> 00:13:34,320 Speaker 1: put their hand inside of the puppet and pretended to 202 00:13:34,360 --> 00:13:38,960 Speaker 1: be somebody else doing the speaking. So, not surprisingly, truth 203 00:13:39,040 --> 00:13:43,080 Speaker 1: can get complex on social media because social media is 204 00:13:43,120 --> 00:13:45,559 Speaker 1: not always the right tool for the job for that. 205 00:13:46,160 --> 00:13:49,599 Speaker 1: So these are the general kinds of concerns that scholars 206 00:13:49,679 --> 00:13:53,880 Speaker 1: have about the Internet. But I want to present an 207 00:13:54,000 --> 00:13:58,080 Speaker 1: argument that has gotten essentially zero airtime, which is whether 208 00:13:58,120 --> 00:14:03,760 Speaker 1: it is a possibility that the Internet has made things better? Now, 209 00:14:03,800 --> 00:14:06,200 Speaker 1: how you might say, could the Internet have made truth 210 00:14:06,240 --> 00:14:08,960 Speaker 1: seeking better? Well, here's how it all has to do 211 00:14:09,040 --> 00:14:14,120 Speaker 1: with information flow. For an analogy, think about arteries. For 212 00:14:14,280 --> 00:14:18,280 Speaker 1: maximal health, you need unobstructed blood flow in your arteries, 213 00:14:18,840 --> 00:14:22,880 Speaker 1: and in exactly this way, societies need the free flow 214 00:14:22,960 --> 00:14:27,560 Speaker 1: of information. Things that block that flow can be fatal 215 00:14:27,600 --> 00:14:30,320 Speaker 1: to a nation. And I'm going to give you several examples. 216 00:14:31,240 --> 00:14:36,280 Speaker 1: So first, political censorship. This has been a familiar specter 217 00:14:36,440 --> 00:14:41,560 Speaker 1: throughout the last century, with state approved news outlets ruling 218 00:14:41,600 --> 00:14:45,520 Speaker 1: the press and airwaves in places like Romania or Cuba, 219 00:14:45,720 --> 00:14:50,000 Speaker 1: or China or Iraq, among lots of others. So the 220 00:14:50,080 --> 00:14:54,720 Speaker 1: official newspapers of the former Soviet Union had a complete 221 00:14:54,880 --> 00:14:58,280 Speaker 1: lock on the news, and foreign newspapers were allowed only 222 00:14:58,360 --> 00:15:01,840 Speaker 1: if they were published by communist parties with the approval 223 00:15:01,960 --> 00:15:05,840 Speaker 1: of the Soviets, and censorship did not end with news stories. 224 00:15:06,280 --> 00:15:10,400 Speaker 1: Copying machines were tightly controlled by the Soviets to prevent 225 00:15:10,600 --> 00:15:15,440 Speaker 1: dissemination of self published books or magazines. Even weather reports 226 00:15:15,600 --> 00:15:22,640 Speaker 1: were censored. In Nikolai Chichesku's Romania, certain temperature extremes translated 227 00:15:22,680 --> 00:15:25,720 Speaker 1: into time off of work, so the weather reports were 228 00:15:25,760 --> 00:15:29,240 Speaker 1: doctored so that these levels were not reached, and it 229 00:15:29,320 --> 00:15:33,080 Speaker 1: was the same in the Soviet Union. Stalin doctored weather 230 00:15:33,160 --> 00:15:37,040 Speaker 1: forecasts if they suggested that the sun would not shine 231 00:15:37,200 --> 00:15:40,840 Speaker 1: on the day of celebration for the labor movement, and 232 00:15:41,000 --> 00:15:46,680 Speaker 1: censorship reaches into every aspect of nations under control of dictators. 233 00:15:47,480 --> 00:15:52,360 Speaker 1: In Saddam Hussein's Iraq, maps of Baghdad were not allowed 234 00:15:52,400 --> 00:15:55,400 Speaker 1: to be printed lest some enemy of the state get 235 00:15:55,440 --> 00:15:58,120 Speaker 1: a hold of a map and then they could decipher 236 00:15:58,200 --> 00:16:02,800 Speaker 1: the street names for easy navigation. And the weather reports 237 00:16:02,800 --> 00:16:07,040 Speaker 1: there weren't just doctored they were locked away as classified information. 238 00:16:08,320 --> 00:16:11,880 Speaker 1: And I'll give you another example which demonstrates how not 239 00:16:12,160 --> 00:16:15,480 Speaker 1: new some of our problems are. People are worried about 240 00:16:15,560 --> 00:16:18,680 Speaker 1: deep fake photographs, which I'll talk about next week. Well, 241 00:16:18,800 --> 00:16:22,920 Speaker 1: the Soviets were doing this over a century ago. They 242 00:16:23,080 --> 00:16:27,840 Speaker 1: had a not so secret fondness for rewriting their national 243 00:16:27,920 --> 00:16:32,600 Speaker 1: story on the fly, so they routinely edited photographs to 244 00:16:32,720 --> 00:16:36,280 Speaker 1: remove people who had fallen out of favor with the party. 245 00:16:36,320 --> 00:16:39,920 Speaker 1: I'll give you a famous example. There's a photo which 246 00:16:40,160 --> 00:16:43,800 Speaker 1: proudly captures Lenin and other Soviet leaders in Red Square 247 00:16:43,800 --> 00:16:47,480 Speaker 1: and Moscow in nineteen nineteen. So you can see Lenin 248 00:16:47,640 --> 00:16:50,200 Speaker 1: and standing on his left, you see Leon Trotsky, and 249 00:16:50,280 --> 00:16:53,600 Speaker 1: on Lenin's right is a man named Kamenev, and there's 250 00:16:53,640 --> 00:16:56,800 Speaker 1: a bearded man two rows in front of Trotsky, a 251 00:16:56,840 --> 00:16:59,840 Speaker 1: Bolshevik leader from Georgia. Okay, well, if you look at 252 00:16:59,840 --> 00:17:03,840 Speaker 1: a release of this photo some years later, the official 253 00:17:03,960 --> 00:17:07,679 Speaker 1: Soviet version of the photo, you see that after Leon 254 00:17:07,800 --> 00:17:11,879 Speaker 1: Trotsky fell from party favor, he was airbrushed out of 255 00:17:11,920 --> 00:17:15,520 Speaker 1: the photo. In the revised photograph, there's just an empty 256 00:17:15,600 --> 00:17:18,399 Speaker 1: space where he used to be, and kamon f on 257 00:17:18,440 --> 00:17:22,399 Speaker 1: the right has disappeared as well, and the bearded Bolshevik 258 00:17:22,480 --> 00:17:26,520 Speaker 1: leader never existed in the photo either. I'll put this 259 00:17:26,720 --> 00:17:29,359 Speaker 1: photo the before and after version on my website so 260 00:17:29,440 --> 00:17:32,159 Speaker 1: you can check it out at eagleman dot com slash podcast, 261 00:17:32,640 --> 00:17:36,679 Speaker 1: and I'll also show another photograph. There's Joseph Stalin and 262 00:17:36,720 --> 00:17:40,280 Speaker 1: there's a man who is left named Nikolai Yezhov. Yezhov 263 00:17:40,440 --> 00:17:43,280 Speaker 1: was a ruthless, awful guy. He was the head of 264 00:17:43,320 --> 00:17:48,440 Speaker 1: the secret police, the NKVD, and he spent years brutally 265 00:17:48,960 --> 00:17:52,840 Speaker 1: purging enemies of the state, typically without evidence and often 266 00:17:52,880 --> 00:17:57,240 Speaker 1: for personal reasons. But then in nineteen forty, Yezhov earned 267 00:17:57,280 --> 00:17:59,600 Speaker 1: the same treatment that he'd been handing out. He was 268 00:18:00,080 --> 00:18:03,160 Speaker 1: stripped and beaten and shot in the basement of an 269 00:18:03,240 --> 00:18:08,600 Speaker 1: NKVD station. So Stalin wrapped up loose ends by deleting 270 00:18:08,680 --> 00:18:14,040 Speaker 1: Yezhov from history by airbrushing him out of the photo. Now, 271 00:18:14,080 --> 00:18:18,840 Speaker 1: not surprisingly, governments that are infamous for blocking information flow 272 00:18:19,400 --> 00:18:21,440 Speaker 1: are the same ones we think of when we hear 273 00:18:21,560 --> 00:18:26,640 Speaker 1: of purges and shortages and repression and civil and political 274 00:18:26,720 --> 00:18:32,439 Speaker 1: rights and isolation. Censorship rarely works well for regimes, and 275 00:18:32,480 --> 00:18:37,240 Speaker 1: perhaps this is because a population that's fed doctor messages 276 00:18:37,320 --> 00:18:40,520 Speaker 1: never truly falls for the trick. A friend of mine 277 00:18:40,560 --> 00:18:42,800 Speaker 1: who was raised in the Soviet Union tells me that 278 00:18:43,040 --> 00:18:46,479 Speaker 1: everyone held two separate things in their heads, what they 279 00:18:46,480 --> 00:18:48,560 Speaker 1: were supposed to say to each other and what they 280 00:18:48,640 --> 00:19:08,560 Speaker 1: actually believed. So there are lots of complaints that people 281 00:19:08,600 --> 00:19:11,560 Speaker 1: have about the Internet, but the way to really understand 282 00:19:11,600 --> 00:19:15,800 Speaker 1: why it's better for the truth is to deeply understand 283 00:19:16,200 --> 00:19:21,800 Speaker 1: the disaster of centralized command of the truth. Censorship can 284 00:19:21,840 --> 00:19:25,760 Speaker 1: involve more than books and photos, and whether the tyranny 285 00:19:25,800 --> 00:19:29,399 Speaker 1: of information control can actually bring down a nation. I 286 00:19:29,480 --> 00:19:34,280 Speaker 1: mentioned in the previous episode about a Soviet scientist named 287 00:19:34,320 --> 00:19:39,600 Speaker 1: Trophym Lyashenko. He was an agronomist who proposed these stunning 288 00:19:39,640 --> 00:19:44,480 Speaker 1: new scientific theories about how to grow wheat better and faster, 289 00:19:45,160 --> 00:19:48,000 Speaker 1: and he was highly favored by Stalin and so Laishenko 290 00:19:48,200 --> 00:19:51,119 Speaker 1: rose up through the ranks of power. But it turns 291 00:19:51,160 --> 00:19:56,200 Speaker 1: out his theories were scientifically fraudulent, but that didn't stop 292 00:19:56,280 --> 00:19:59,760 Speaker 1: him from gaining impressive influence in the party, and by 293 00:20:00,200 --> 00:20:04,760 Speaker 1: the nineteen forties he steered the agricultural program for the 294 00:20:05,280 --> 00:20:10,400 Speaker 1: entire USSR. Now there was a grave problem with this 295 00:20:10,680 --> 00:20:16,240 Speaker 1: centralized command, which is that the USSR spanned thirteen time 296 00:20:16,359 --> 00:20:20,760 Speaker 1: zones and an astounding variety of soils and climates and 297 00:20:20,800 --> 00:20:26,240 Speaker 1: local knowledge, and so applied to a landscape that size, 298 00:20:26,400 --> 00:20:31,960 Speaker 1: this central rule setting was disastrous for wheat production. Local 299 00:20:32,040 --> 00:20:35,040 Speaker 1: farmers knew better how to care for their crops, but 300 00:20:35,119 --> 00:20:39,399 Speaker 1: they were disallowed the freedom, and scientists who disagreed with 301 00:20:39,520 --> 00:20:44,840 Speaker 1: Lyashenko found themselves disbarred from their positions, and several agronomists 302 00:20:45,000 --> 00:20:49,159 Speaker 1: were executed. Part of the downfall of the USSR can 303 00:20:49,200 --> 00:20:54,479 Speaker 1: be traced to this centralization of agricultural decisions. It ruined 304 00:20:54,480 --> 00:20:58,200 Speaker 1: the economy, and it crippled confidence in the new system. 305 00:20:59,119 --> 00:21:02,879 Speaker 1: So the lesson for history is that a centralized tyranny 306 00:21:03,640 --> 00:21:08,679 Speaker 1: rarely works as well as local information and nested feedback loops, 307 00:21:09,320 --> 00:21:14,040 Speaker 1: and this is where the Internet shines. Historically, the more 308 00:21:14,080 --> 00:21:18,240 Speaker 1: successful strategy has always been to confront free speech with 309 00:21:18,320 --> 00:21:22,280 Speaker 1: free speech, and the Internet allows that in a natural way. 310 00:21:22,359 --> 00:21:27,879 Speaker 1: It democratizes the flow of information by giving open access 311 00:21:28,359 --> 00:21:31,520 Speaker 1: to the newspapers of the world, the photographers of every nation, 312 00:21:32,119 --> 00:21:36,600 Speaker 1: the bloggers of every political stripe. Now, I talked last 313 00:21:36,600 --> 00:21:41,200 Speaker 1: week about how in any conflict, people will post the 314 00:21:41,240 --> 00:21:43,760 Speaker 1: worst videos from the other side and try to imply 315 00:21:43,840 --> 00:21:47,800 Speaker 1: that that is representative of the opposing population so they 316 00:21:47,800 --> 00:21:50,800 Speaker 1: can whip up support. And that's an issue to always 317 00:21:50,880 --> 00:21:53,879 Speaker 1: keep an eye on. That's a genuine problem. But even 318 00:21:53,920 --> 00:21:58,199 Speaker 1: that is far better than the other problem, which is censorship. 319 00:21:58,600 --> 00:22:01,679 Speaker 1: As soon as you give one side, any side, a 320 00:22:01,840 --> 00:22:05,359 Speaker 1: total lockdown on the news, you have a much deeper 321 00:22:05,480 --> 00:22:10,160 Speaker 1: level of problem. So coming back to a democratic Internet 322 00:22:10,200 --> 00:22:13,000 Speaker 1: that has open to everyone, of course you're going to 323 00:22:13,040 --> 00:22:17,080 Speaker 1: get some postings that are full of doctoring and dishonesty, 324 00:22:17,320 --> 00:22:21,639 Speaker 1: while others strive for independence and impartiality. But in the 325 00:22:21,760 --> 00:22:25,240 Speaker 1: end all are available for the end user to sift 326 00:22:25,320 --> 00:22:30,480 Speaker 1: through for reasoned consideration. It's far better than having zero 327 00:22:30,680 --> 00:22:35,600 Speaker 1: choice about the story that you're fed. And beyond news sites, 328 00:22:35,720 --> 00:22:42,800 Speaker 1: the simple redundancy of information online changes the censorship equation irreversibly. 329 00:22:43,080 --> 00:22:48,280 Speaker 1: So just imagine Hussein trying to eradicate maps when anyone 330 00:22:48,320 --> 00:22:52,600 Speaker 1: can serve satellite photos to two meter resolution. Or imagine 331 00:22:52,720 --> 00:22:57,080 Speaker 1: Chichescu trying to doctor weather reports when anyone can pull 332 00:22:57,160 --> 00:23:01,879 Speaker 1: up the weather of the world. Orginej. Stalin trying to 333 00:23:01,960 --> 00:23:06,679 Speaker 1: delete Trotsky from photographs when the photos are mirrored on 334 00:23:06,880 --> 00:23:11,240 Speaker 1: Google images, and the Internet Archive in a thousand other sites. Now, 335 00:23:11,359 --> 00:23:15,639 Speaker 1: this inability to erase information from the Internet took on 336 00:23:15,760 --> 00:23:20,160 Speaker 1: a name two decades ago. It's called the Streisand Effect. 337 00:23:20,240 --> 00:23:23,360 Speaker 1: This happened because in two thousand and three, a guy 338 00:23:23,480 --> 00:23:28,320 Speaker 1: snapped an aerial photograph of Barbara Streisand's home in Malibu, 339 00:23:29,040 --> 00:23:32,120 Speaker 1: and the guy posted the photo on his website for 340 00:23:32,359 --> 00:23:35,960 Speaker 1: privacy reasons. Streisand wanted it off the net, and when 341 00:23:36,000 --> 00:23:39,880 Speaker 1: he wouldn't comply, she sued him. But her actions had 342 00:23:39,960 --> 00:23:45,320 Speaker 1: a drastic, unintended consequence. Until that moment, almost no one 343 00:23:45,359 --> 00:23:48,680 Speaker 1: knew where her home was, and by trying to suppress 344 00:23:48,720 --> 00:23:53,000 Speaker 1: the information, she promptly drove over a million visitors to 345 00:23:53,080 --> 00:23:58,119 Speaker 1: his site. So observing this Streisand incident in two thousand 346 00:23:58,160 --> 00:24:01,760 Speaker 1: and three, internet watchers realized they were seeing the new 347 00:24:01,880 --> 00:24:06,280 Speaker 1: rules of the game in action. Trying to suppress information 348 00:24:06,440 --> 00:24:11,959 Speaker 1: on the Web only magnifies it. And this new inability 349 00:24:12,000 --> 00:24:17,520 Speaker 1: to hide information found perhaps its highest expression in wiki Leaks, 350 00:24:17,800 --> 00:24:19,960 Speaker 1: which was launched in two thousand and six by the 351 00:24:20,000 --> 00:24:24,879 Speaker 1: Australian journalist and activist Julian Assange. His mission, he said, 352 00:24:24,960 --> 00:24:28,800 Speaker 1: was to open governments. The site seems like it's mostly 353 00:24:28,920 --> 00:24:31,680 Speaker 1: dying now some seventeen years later. But what it did 354 00:24:32,400 --> 00:24:37,200 Speaker 1: was published documents disclosed by anonymous sources, and it got 355 00:24:37,280 --> 00:24:41,680 Speaker 1: to about ten million such documents. And the documents it 356 00:24:41,760 --> 00:24:44,600 Speaker 1: leaked were as varied as their country is of origin. 357 00:24:44,680 --> 00:24:48,320 Speaker 1: I remember when they leaked Sarah Palin's Yahoo email account. 358 00:24:48,320 --> 00:24:51,640 Speaker 1: They leaked membership lists of illegal parties in the UK. 359 00:24:51,840 --> 00:24:57,600 Speaker 1: They leaked internal United Nations reports and senatorial campaign documents, 360 00:24:57,600 --> 00:25:02,360 Speaker 1: and oil scandals and airstrike videos. In twenty ten, WikiLeaks 361 00:25:02,359 --> 00:25:06,680 Speaker 1: released eighty thousand classified documents about the war in Afghanistan, 362 00:25:07,160 --> 00:25:09,040 Speaker 1: and by the end of that year it published close 363 00:25:09,080 --> 00:25:12,160 Speaker 1: to four hundred thousand documents from the war in Iraq. 364 00:25:12,880 --> 00:25:15,040 Speaker 1: And the thing to observe about those leaks is that 365 00:25:15,480 --> 00:25:21,080 Speaker 1: they weren't impotent. Sometimes they directly fomented social change. So 366 00:25:21,960 --> 00:25:26,280 Speaker 1: consider this incident in which an icelandic bank gagged the 367 00:25:26,400 --> 00:25:31,040 Speaker 1: national broadcaster of Iceland from reporting on its debt default risk. 368 00:25:31,760 --> 00:25:36,040 Speaker 1: A whistleblower got the info onto WikiLeaks, and Icelanders went 369 00:25:36,080 --> 00:25:39,560 Speaker 1: into an uproar and that rapidly led to new legislation 370 00:25:39,680 --> 00:25:44,760 Speaker 1: in their parliament ensuring media freedom. So if you care 371 00:25:44,800 --> 00:25:48,400 Speaker 1: about truth. You should care about the power of the Internet, 372 00:25:48,680 --> 00:25:52,119 Speaker 1: and I'll mention something else where. Getting information out leads 373 00:25:52,160 --> 00:25:57,400 Speaker 1: to good things happening. So WikiLeaks published lists of blacklisted 374 00:25:57,440 --> 00:26:01,760 Speaker 1: websites from the governments of Denmark and Norway, and Thailand 375 00:26:01,760 --> 00:26:05,440 Speaker 1: and Australia. And in most of these cases the blacklisted 376 00:26:05,520 --> 00:26:09,680 Speaker 1: sites were pornographic or violent, but it never takes long 377 00:26:09,800 --> 00:26:14,080 Speaker 1: before other sites get slipped onto the list. For example, 378 00:26:14,640 --> 00:26:19,480 Speaker 1: the Thailand Censorship list advertises a filter against child pornography, 379 00:26:19,800 --> 00:26:23,040 Speaker 1: contained over one thousand sites that were felt to be 380 00:26:23,160 --> 00:26:27,880 Speaker 1: critical of the Thai royal family, and Assaunge maintains, as 381 00:26:27,920 --> 00:26:33,119 Speaker 1: many people do, that censorship approaches like Internet filtering become 382 00:26:33,640 --> 00:26:40,359 Speaker 1: invariably corrupted. And another thing, the speed of information flow 383 00:26:40,440 --> 00:26:45,399 Speaker 1: on the Internet allows rapid, massive democratic response. I remember 384 00:26:45,400 --> 00:26:47,479 Speaker 1: in two thousand and nine, when the Internet was newer, 385 00:26:48,040 --> 00:26:51,719 Speaker 1: when Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced he was going 386 00:26:51,760 --> 00:26:54,840 Speaker 1: to shut down Parliament until March thirtieth. And what he 387 00:26:54,880 --> 00:26:56,919 Speaker 1: said is that he needed time to work on a 388 00:26:56,960 --> 00:27:00,280 Speaker 1: stimulus package. But a lot of people suspected he was 389 00:27:00,320 --> 00:27:03,480 Speaker 1: just trying to prevent a vote of no confidence from 390 00:27:03,560 --> 00:27:07,200 Speaker 1: the opposition parties. So such a vote would force an election, 391 00:27:07,880 --> 00:27:11,199 Speaker 1: which is something Harper desperately wanted to avoid. So a 392 00:27:11,280 --> 00:27:16,160 Speaker 1: Canadian student, unhappy about this shutdown and has perceived reasons 393 00:27:16,160 --> 00:27:20,399 Speaker 1: for it, he started a Facebook group that quickly swelled 394 00:27:20,800 --> 00:27:24,280 Speaker 1: to two hundred and fourteen thousand members, and it precipitated 395 00:27:24,359 --> 00:27:28,840 Speaker 1: real world rallies all across Canada with crowds of thousands. 396 00:27:29,400 --> 00:27:34,359 Speaker 1: And that kind of breakneck speed of messaging equates to 397 00:27:34,440 --> 00:27:38,080 Speaker 1: a departure from the days of spreading the word by 398 00:27:38,440 --> 00:27:43,439 Speaker 1: pamphleting or shouting from horseback. It allows the citizenry to 399 00:27:43,480 --> 00:27:49,000 Speaker 1: become a rapid response democratic organism. If a bunch of 400 00:27:49,040 --> 00:27:53,320 Speaker 1: individual brains happened to share an opinion, they can combine 401 00:27:53,520 --> 00:27:57,480 Speaker 1: rapidly to be heard. Now, obviously, that has both pros 402 00:27:57,520 --> 00:28:00,119 Speaker 1: and cons, and this is one of the plays. This 403 00:28:00,160 --> 00:28:03,320 Speaker 1: is where I think the advent of the Internet does 404 00:28:03,440 --> 00:28:07,320 Speaker 1: lead to a quantitative and qualitative change, because it allows 405 00:28:07,440 --> 00:28:12,439 Speaker 1: crowds to pull together very quickly, sometimes frighteningly so. And 406 00:28:12,480 --> 00:28:16,920 Speaker 1: sometimes giant crowds prove useful for protesting something bad. Then 407 00:28:16,920 --> 00:28:22,359 Speaker 1: sometimes they provide terrifying brainless muscle. But going back to 408 00:28:22,400 --> 00:28:25,440 Speaker 1: the benefits of the net, one of the biggest benefits 409 00:28:25,520 --> 00:28:29,560 Speaker 1: began even when the Internet was quite young. Movements sprang 410 00:28:29,640 --> 00:28:34,920 Speaker 1: up to keep governments from tampering with the democratic voting process, 411 00:28:35,400 --> 00:28:40,040 Speaker 1: and this holy grail of fairness got achieved via Internet 412 00:28:40,080 --> 00:28:45,920 Speaker 1: movements in which citizens leveraged live online mapping to aggregate 413 00:28:46,000 --> 00:28:51,160 Speaker 1: and display activities during elections. Take, for example, the crisis 414 00:28:51,200 --> 00:28:55,400 Speaker 1: mapping tool ushahidi dot com, which was originally developed when 415 00:28:55,560 --> 00:29:00,640 Speaker 1: violence erupted following the disputed Kenyan presidential elections of two 416 00:29:00,680 --> 00:29:04,600 Speaker 1: thousand and eight. Using Ushahidi, anyone with a cell phone 417 00:29:04,640 --> 00:29:08,840 Speaker 1: could send a text message to report disturbances or defamation 418 00:29:09,040 --> 00:29:12,400 Speaker 1: or vote tampering, or even simply to say that everything 419 00:29:12,440 --> 00:29:16,480 Speaker 1: went well there. And so by constructing a dynamic map 420 00:29:16,680 --> 00:29:21,240 Speaker 1: of the trouble spots, they could attract the world's reporters 421 00:29:21,280 --> 00:29:25,360 Speaker 1: to expose the fraud. And to this day, reports from 422 00:29:25,480 --> 00:29:30,320 Speaker 1: Ushahidi typically feature alongside those of full time journalists. And 423 00:29:30,360 --> 00:29:34,280 Speaker 1: this is all helping to ensure that an election is 424 00:29:34,440 --> 00:29:38,120 Speaker 1: as free and fair as possible. And that's a big 425 00:29:38,160 --> 00:29:42,080 Speaker 1: deal because many elections all around the globe continue to 426 00:29:42,120 --> 00:29:47,440 Speaker 1: be famously and unabashedly fraudulent, not in the most advanced countries, 427 00:29:47,480 --> 00:29:51,920 Speaker 1: but certainly in places like Afghanistan, where elections are characterized 428 00:29:52,320 --> 00:29:56,840 Speaker 1: by widespread fraud of the tallies and intimidation and ballot 429 00:29:56,840 --> 00:30:00,880 Speaker 1: stuffing and people paid to vote multiple times using fake 430 00:30:00,960 --> 00:30:04,360 Speaker 1: or duplicate voter cards. As it turns out, a lot 431 00:30:04,360 --> 00:30:08,600 Speaker 1: of voters are scared or reluctant to discuss any fraud 432 00:30:08,680 --> 00:30:12,800 Speaker 1: that they witnessed, but sending a text message is easy 433 00:30:13,120 --> 00:30:17,040 Speaker 1: and so mobile crowd monitoring of elections has been a 434 00:30:17,120 --> 00:30:21,280 Speaker 1: growing trend around the planet. By aggregating little bits of 435 00:30:21,360 --> 00:30:25,560 Speaker 1: information from the millions of folk reporters on the ground, 436 00:30:25,960 --> 00:30:30,040 Speaker 1: This method keeps governments one step more transparent then they 437 00:30:30,120 --> 00:30:34,080 Speaker 1: might otherwise volunteer to be in the absence of watchful 438 00:30:34,120 --> 00:30:37,680 Speaker 1: eyes and far reaching voices. And there are similar trends 439 00:30:37,680 --> 00:30:42,880 Speaker 1: that publicly track journalist safety, especially those who are potentially 440 00:30:42,960 --> 00:30:46,280 Speaker 1: in danger from their own governments. There's a saying in 441 00:30:46,360 --> 00:30:49,600 Speaker 1: journalism that if you turn on a bright light, the 442 00:30:49,720 --> 00:30:54,560 Speaker 1: roaches scatter. So with these aggregation sites, each person with 443 00:30:54,640 --> 00:30:58,280 Speaker 1: a cell phone contributes just a few photons and the 444 00:30:58,400 --> 00:31:02,200 Speaker 1: sum is enough to light up the country. So the 445 00:31:02,400 --> 00:31:05,640 Speaker 1: argument I've made is that the Internet provides the potential 446 00:31:05,720 --> 00:31:09,720 Speaker 1: to enhance democracy. But it's really important that we note 447 00:31:09,960 --> 00:31:13,440 Speaker 1: that this benefit is in danger in many countries. So, 448 00:31:13,720 --> 00:31:19,080 Speaker 1: for example, aligned with China's Great Wall is China's Great firewall. 449 00:31:19,760 --> 00:31:24,760 Speaker 1: Chinese internet filters put blanket blocks on political statements that 450 00:31:24,800 --> 00:31:29,360 Speaker 1: the government does not allow, and apparently internet users are 451 00:31:29,520 --> 00:31:34,000 Speaker 1: hired to post positive observations about the government on forums 452 00:31:34,000 --> 00:31:36,280 Speaker 1: and chat rooms. Now, I don't know if you were 453 00:31:36,280 --> 00:31:38,320 Speaker 1: following this back in two thousand and six, but at 454 00:31:38,320 --> 00:31:41,320 Speaker 1: the time, the Internet was still young and companies were 455 00:31:41,320 --> 00:31:44,840 Speaker 1: still struggling to figure out who was going to ascend 456 00:31:45,000 --> 00:31:49,560 Speaker 1: to the top. And Google agreed to allow China to 457 00:31:49,840 --> 00:31:54,320 Speaker 1: censor search traffic because this seemed like an acceptable price 458 00:31:54,360 --> 00:31:58,000 Speaker 1: for Google for the opportunity to tap into a market 459 00:31:58,000 --> 00:32:02,440 Speaker 1: of four hundred million Internet use So the Chinese government 460 00:32:02,520 --> 00:32:05,760 Speaker 1: in China was allowed to filter the Google search results. 461 00:32:05,960 --> 00:32:08,200 Speaker 1: So what does this mean? If you search from anywhere 462 00:32:08,200 --> 00:32:11,880 Speaker 1: in the world for Tienemann Square protest, you get a 463 00:32:12,280 --> 00:32:15,840 Speaker 1: reasonable set of search results, But if you performed the 464 00:32:15,920 --> 00:32:20,000 Speaker 1: same search inside China's borders, you would get a very 465 00:32:20,040 --> 00:32:22,560 Speaker 1: different set and you would not see any of the 466 00:32:22,800 --> 00:32:42,560 Speaker 1: iconic photographs of that event. Well, come back to Google 467 00:32:42,640 --> 00:32:44,600 Speaker 1: in a moment. But first I want to mention how 468 00:32:44,640 --> 00:32:48,240 Speaker 1: easy it has always been to demonstrate the Chinese firewall. 469 00:32:48,480 --> 00:32:50,360 Speaker 1: That this has changed a little bit recently. But some 470 00:32:50,520 --> 00:32:53,560 Speaker 1: years ago you could go to say buyd dot com, 471 00:32:53,560 --> 00:32:56,560 Speaker 1: which is the major Chinese search engine, and you type 472 00:32:56,560 --> 00:32:59,000 Speaker 1: in something like the name of your local city and 473 00:32:59,040 --> 00:33:02,360 Speaker 1: you get several result returned. Now you type in something 474 00:33:02,480 --> 00:33:06,080 Speaker 1: like Falloon Gong, which is a spiritualist movement on the 475 00:33:06,160 --> 00:33:10,560 Speaker 1: Chinese blacklist, and you get an error message reading this 476 00:33:10,640 --> 00:33:14,440 Speaker 1: web page is not available. It appears that perhaps a 477 00:33:14,840 --> 00:33:18,840 Speaker 1: server has gone down on by news end. What just happened? Well, 478 00:33:19,120 --> 00:33:23,360 Speaker 1: when Chinese servers detect an incoming packet with a prohibited term, 479 00:33:23,880 --> 00:33:28,560 Speaker 1: they return a reset message which falsely tells the request 480 00:33:29,160 --> 00:33:31,720 Speaker 1: that there was an error retrieving the page. This makes 481 00:33:31,760 --> 00:33:34,760 Speaker 1: it look as though the problem is related to the 482 00:33:34,800 --> 00:33:38,920 Speaker 1: requested site, and the Chinese servers then put the requesting 483 00:33:38,960 --> 00:33:42,400 Speaker 1: machine's IP address on a blacklist for a few moments. 484 00:33:42,720 --> 00:33:47,160 Speaker 1: So if you try entering your innocuous first search again, 485 00:33:47,680 --> 00:33:51,160 Speaker 1: you'll get an error message. Now because you've been temporarily 486 00:33:51,200 --> 00:33:53,880 Speaker 1: blocked out of China at least as of a few 487 00:33:53,960 --> 00:33:56,360 Speaker 1: years ago. You could try this on any Chinese search 488 00:33:56,400 --> 00:33:59,800 Speaker 1: engine of your choice and you'd get exactly the same result. 489 00:34:00,640 --> 00:34:03,360 Speaker 1: Now let's return to Google in the Chinese market. What 490 00:34:03,480 --> 00:34:06,680 Speaker 1: happened at the beginning of twenty ten was that Google's 491 00:34:06,920 --> 00:34:10,760 Speaker 1: servers in China were hacked and the information was taken 492 00:34:10,800 --> 00:34:14,200 Speaker 1: from different accounts, and it appeared that the hackers had 493 00:34:14,200 --> 00:34:18,680 Speaker 1: a special focus on the accounts of Chinese political dissidents, 494 00:34:19,239 --> 00:34:23,239 Speaker 1: and Google was pretty sure the Chinese government was behind 495 00:34:23,360 --> 00:34:26,600 Speaker 1: the break in. So as a result, Google changed its 496 00:34:26,719 --> 00:34:30,680 Speaker 1: mind on the topic of censorship and circumvented the Great 497 00:34:30,719 --> 00:34:35,560 Speaker 1: Firewall of China by rerouting through Hong Kong, and eventually 498 00:34:35,719 --> 00:34:40,719 Speaker 1: China banned Google altogether. So Google ended up surrendering a 499 00:34:40,920 --> 00:34:45,040 Speaker 1: large piece of the lucrative Chinese market. But this kind 500 00:34:45,080 --> 00:34:48,240 Speaker 1: of move is critical if you don't want to support 501 00:34:48,560 --> 00:34:51,560 Speaker 1: government censorship. And by the way, I need to make 502 00:34:51,600 --> 00:34:56,440 Speaker 1: clear that internet censorship is not limited to China. Most 503 00:34:56,440 --> 00:34:59,480 Speaker 1: of the countries that impinge on Internet freedom will come 504 00:34:59,480 --> 00:35:03,400 Speaker 1: as no surprise, nations like Burma and Cuba and Egypt 505 00:35:03,440 --> 00:35:07,600 Speaker 1: and Iran and North Korea and Saudi Arabia and Syria 506 00:35:07,640 --> 00:35:10,879 Speaker 1: and Uganda and a bunch of others. But sometimes people 507 00:35:10,880 --> 00:35:14,320 Speaker 1: are a little surprised to discover that some Western countries 508 00:35:14,719 --> 00:35:18,040 Speaker 1: try to get in on the action here. Some years ago, 509 00:35:18,160 --> 00:35:22,719 Speaker 1: in Australia, the Australian Labor Party proposed a set of 510 00:35:22,800 --> 00:35:26,640 Speaker 1: laws to censor blacklisted sites at the level of the 511 00:35:26,680 --> 00:35:30,120 Speaker 1: Internet service providers. They claimed the sites they wanted to 512 00:35:30,120 --> 00:35:34,960 Speaker 1: censor were involved in child pornography or terrorism. But then 513 00:35:35,120 --> 00:35:39,279 Speaker 1: WikiLeaks released the list of the blacklisted sites, and the 514 00:35:39,320 --> 00:35:43,640 Speaker 1: list encompassed other sites as well, some of them seemingly random. 515 00:35:44,239 --> 00:35:48,279 Speaker 1: The filtering legislation didn't pass in Australia, but the fact 516 00:35:48,320 --> 00:35:51,799 Speaker 1: that it had some momentum reminds us to always keep 517 00:35:51,800 --> 00:35:54,520 Speaker 1: an eye on this. In other words, if you care 518 00:35:55,000 --> 00:35:58,600 Speaker 1: about truth on the Internet, we need to think about 519 00:35:58,800 --> 00:36:02,840 Speaker 1: more than people saying stupid stuff online. The bigger worry 520 00:36:03,239 --> 00:36:07,359 Speaker 1: from a historical angle is about state control of what 521 00:36:07,440 --> 00:36:11,879 Speaker 1: information you can or cannot access. And this is the 522 00:36:11,920 --> 00:36:17,600 Speaker 1: beauty of a technology that seeks to network everyone's brain 523 00:36:17,960 --> 00:36:23,359 Speaker 1: together and democratize things and hear everyone's voice. Obviously, some 524 00:36:23,440 --> 00:36:26,279 Speaker 1: of those voices will be less useful than others, and 525 00:36:26,440 --> 00:36:30,440 Speaker 1: people at the political extremes will purposefully lie and make 526 00:36:30,520 --> 00:36:34,480 Speaker 1: up have truth. But it is better than Stalin or 527 00:36:34,560 --> 00:36:39,360 Speaker 1: Giping or Chichescu or Hitler or Polpod or Mussolini allowing 528 00:36:39,400 --> 00:36:42,920 Speaker 1: you to hear only the messages that they want you 529 00:36:43,000 --> 00:36:46,920 Speaker 1: to hear and nothing else. So look, whatever side of 530 00:36:46,960 --> 00:36:50,000 Speaker 1: the political spectrum you're on, just think of how you 531 00:36:50,040 --> 00:36:55,200 Speaker 1: would feel if Biden or Trump got to control the 532 00:36:55,360 --> 00:36:59,640 Speaker 1: news entirely during his presidency and you wouldn't be allowed 533 00:36:59,680 --> 00:37:02,520 Speaker 1: to see the other side. If that sounds like a 534 00:37:02,680 --> 00:37:05,600 Speaker 1: nightmare to you, then you see why I am so 535 00:37:05,960 --> 00:37:11,520 Speaker 1: optimistic about this technology when we have a conversation about truth. 536 00:37:12,520 --> 00:37:16,920 Speaker 1: This networking technology makes it impossible to do all the 537 00:37:16,960 --> 00:37:20,319 Speaker 1: things that so many countries have enjoyed doing during the 538 00:37:20,320 --> 00:37:24,520 Speaker 1: twentieth century, like controlling the news and doing historical rewrites. 539 00:37:25,160 --> 00:37:29,400 Speaker 1: By aggregating citizen information, you get some different problems, like 540 00:37:29,440 --> 00:37:33,680 Speaker 1: a lot of noise, but noise is typically better than 541 00:37:33,719 --> 00:37:37,840 Speaker 1: an iron fist. This is why the Internet is sometimes 542 00:37:37,920 --> 00:37:44,840 Speaker 1: categorized as a liberation technology. And indeed citizens everywhere find 543 00:37:44,960 --> 00:37:48,719 Speaker 1: ways to drill holes in the silicone curtain. For example, 544 00:37:49,160 --> 00:37:53,759 Speaker 1: from inside China, lots of young people make secure connections 545 00:37:53,800 --> 00:37:57,239 Speaker 1: to a proxy server, a server outside of China, and 546 00:37:57,320 --> 00:38:01,960 Speaker 1: then the filtering technologies applied on Chinese servers don't apply. 547 00:38:02,360 --> 00:38:05,839 Speaker 1: So daily millions of young people in China make these 548 00:38:05,840 --> 00:38:09,840 Speaker 1: connections to servers in Hong Kong and they surf X 549 00:38:09,960 --> 00:38:13,840 Speaker 1: or Facebook or they use Gmail from there. The most 550 00:38:13,840 --> 00:38:17,960 Speaker 1: oppressive governments will probably always try to implement strict firewalls, 551 00:38:18,000 --> 00:38:20,960 Speaker 1: but this will presumably lead to a black market for 552 00:38:21,040 --> 00:38:25,640 Speaker 1: home brewed satellite uplinking with which to circumvent it, like 553 00:38:25,800 --> 00:38:31,960 Speaker 1: Amagino line. So retaining the capacity of the Internet to 554 00:38:32,120 --> 00:38:36,080 Speaker 1: allow all viewpoints, this is something that's going to require 555 00:38:36,560 --> 00:38:39,640 Speaker 1: constant vigilance for a lot of places in the world. 556 00:38:40,120 --> 00:38:42,880 Speaker 1: The future is going to be a zeros and one's 557 00:38:43,120 --> 00:38:46,760 Speaker 1: arm race between countries and their citizens, and like any 558 00:38:47,280 --> 00:38:50,640 Speaker 1: cat and mouse game, both sides are going to adopt 559 00:38:50,640 --> 00:38:54,120 Speaker 1: each other's technologies. I'll give you an example of the 560 00:38:54,160 --> 00:38:56,920 Speaker 1: cat and mouse game that we saw coming into focus 561 00:38:57,080 --> 00:38:59,560 Speaker 1: even a decade and a half ago. So in two 562 00:38:59,600 --> 00:39:04,400 Speaker 1: thousand nine, the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmed Dinijad declared victory 563 00:39:04,480 --> 00:39:08,799 Speaker 1: over his opponent MUSAVII, but the outcome was suspected of 564 00:39:08,880 --> 00:39:12,879 Speaker 1: being rigged, and almost immediately the pronouncement was followed by 565 00:39:13,040 --> 00:39:16,400 Speaker 1: protests in Tehran and in the Iran more broadly, and 566 00:39:16,480 --> 00:39:19,520 Speaker 1: in cities around the world. Now, as you may remember, 567 00:39:19,920 --> 00:39:24,799 Speaker 1: those protests quickly went bad. Paramilitary snipers on the rooftops 568 00:39:25,160 --> 00:39:28,720 Speaker 1: opened fire on the crowds, and bodies began to collapse 569 00:39:28,760 --> 00:39:31,800 Speaker 1: in the streets. But as quickly as things went bad, 570 00:39:32,480 --> 00:39:36,640 Speaker 1: they went viral. So web surfers in every country watched 571 00:39:36,760 --> 00:39:42,080 Speaker 1: instantly delivered photos and videos of attacks and murders, and 572 00:39:42,200 --> 00:39:46,759 Speaker 1: protesters inside Iran used Twitter and other sites to aggregate 573 00:39:47,040 --> 00:39:51,560 Speaker 1: crisis information and update situations and post links to freshly 574 00:39:51,640 --> 00:39:56,680 Speaker 1: uploaded videos. Cyber dissidents took down Ahmed Dinijad's website with 575 00:39:56,760 --> 00:39:59,960 Speaker 1: a denial of service attack, and a few days after 576 00:40:00,000 --> 00:40:03,120 Speaker 1: after this had begun, and editorial in the Washington Times 577 00:40:03,239 --> 00:40:09,680 Speaker 1: admiringly dubbed the events the Twitter revolution. Now in cat 578 00:40:09,719 --> 00:40:14,640 Speaker 1: and mouse style, the government leveraged their tools too. Amadinijad 579 00:40:14,760 --> 00:40:17,960 Speaker 1: replied not only by banning rallies, but more importantly by 580 00:40:18,280 --> 00:40:22,680 Speaker 1: blocking cell phone transmissions and text messaging and shutting down 581 00:40:22,719 --> 00:40:26,040 Speaker 1: the Internet for forty five minutes to set up filtering software. 582 00:40:26,880 --> 00:40:29,600 Speaker 1: Iran presumably could have opted to take the whole country 583 00:40:29,640 --> 00:40:33,080 Speaker 1: offline permanently during this time, but in the cat and 584 00:40:33,120 --> 00:40:37,280 Speaker 1: mouse game, that option would cripple the government's crisis response 585 00:40:37,280 --> 00:40:41,600 Speaker 1: communications as much as it would the protesters, so in 586 00:40:41,640 --> 00:40:45,319 Speaker 1: the end, the protesters won the digital race in that 587 00:40:45,520 --> 00:40:50,160 Speaker 1: round in Iran, broadcasting the post election oppression to a 588 00:40:50,320 --> 00:40:55,280 Speaker 1: worldwide audience. But the cat and mouse countermeasures have gone 589 00:40:55,520 --> 00:40:59,040 Speaker 1: on and on. After Masa Amini's death in Iran in 590 00:40:59,080 --> 00:41:03,560 Speaker 1: twenty two, citizens took to social media to protest, but 591 00:41:03,920 --> 00:41:08,680 Speaker 1: Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps blocked access to social media 592 00:41:08,719 --> 00:41:11,280 Speaker 1: platforms and in fact shut off the Internet in parts 593 00:41:11,280 --> 00:41:13,800 Speaker 1: of the country, and just in the past few months, 594 00:41:14,520 --> 00:41:18,640 Speaker 1: WhatsApp and Instagram have been blocked in Iran due to 595 00:41:18,800 --> 00:41:22,360 Speaker 1: protests against the government, and last year, Iran was ranked 596 00:41:22,400 --> 00:41:26,279 Speaker 1: the second worst place in the world for Internet censorship, 597 00:41:26,560 --> 00:41:29,279 Speaker 1: which by the way, includes not just social media, but 598 00:41:29,320 --> 00:41:34,000 Speaker 1: also websites relating to health, sports, science, news, and so on, 599 00:41:34,560 --> 00:41:38,320 Speaker 1: all of which should shake us out of our assumptions 600 00:41:38,360 --> 00:41:42,920 Speaker 1: that the Internet is simply open and free and immune 601 00:41:42,960 --> 00:41:47,280 Speaker 1: to a future of government intrusion and something to merely 602 00:41:47,400 --> 00:41:51,200 Speaker 1: gripe about when someone posts something that we dislike. This 603 00:41:51,360 --> 00:41:56,560 Speaker 1: reminds us that the Internet is a liberation technology and 604 00:41:56,680 --> 00:42:00,760 Speaker 1: reminds us of the criticality of keeping the Web open 605 00:42:01,000 --> 00:42:03,960 Speaker 1: and online. For those of us who happen to be 606 00:42:04,040 --> 00:42:06,959 Speaker 1: lucky enough to live in non repressive countries, we should 607 00:42:06,960 --> 00:42:11,360 Speaker 1: always take steps to keep it open and increase government transparency, 608 00:42:11,840 --> 00:42:16,560 Speaker 1: even in the face of opportunities for misinformation and disinformation. 609 00:42:16,920 --> 00:42:20,640 Speaker 1: I think the Internet tips the balance in favor of 610 00:42:20,800 --> 00:42:27,080 Speaker 1: a better society. Censorship is increasingly difficult to pull off now. 611 00:42:27,600 --> 00:42:31,640 Speaker 1: The stalins and touchescos and Husseins have to work a 612 00:42:31,640 --> 00:42:36,520 Speaker 1: lot harder to try to keep information away from the populace. 613 00:42:37,080 --> 00:42:40,719 Speaker 1: We're not going to have an all Trump or an 614 00:42:40,760 --> 00:42:45,560 Speaker 1: all Biden controlled media. News gets out fast, and once 615 00:42:45,600 --> 00:42:50,080 Speaker 1: it's out, it's hard to take back or rewrite it retrospectively. 616 00:42:50,480 --> 00:42:54,759 Speaker 1: And because of the ability to ensure fair voting and 617 00:42:54,920 --> 00:42:58,960 Speaker 1: shine a light on government misdeeds, the ability for regimes 618 00:42:59,000 --> 00:43:02,080 Speaker 1: to keep a tight grip on the data available to 619 00:43:02,120 --> 00:43:07,360 Speaker 1: its citizens is increasingly going to become a nightmare of 620 00:43:07,400 --> 00:43:12,640 Speaker 1: the past now. Obviously, one of the major problems of 621 00:43:12,680 --> 00:43:15,840 Speaker 1: the Internet, just like in all times with all news sources, 622 00:43:16,400 --> 00:43:19,799 Speaker 1: is learning to not accept stories at face value. It 623 00:43:19,840 --> 00:43:24,200 Speaker 1: goes without saying that a good education will teach children 624 00:43:24,640 --> 00:43:29,239 Speaker 1: or adults the need to consider the source, to evaluate 625 00:43:29,280 --> 00:43:32,560 Speaker 1: the evidence as best we can. Now, it's not surprising 626 00:43:32,600 --> 00:43:37,360 Speaker 1: that the older generations are worried about what younger generations 627 00:43:37,360 --> 00:43:40,640 Speaker 1: are stepping into with this technology. But I do think 628 00:43:41,000 --> 00:43:44,640 Speaker 1: that because of all the emphasis on fake news and 629 00:43:44,680 --> 00:43:47,520 Speaker 1: the imminence of deep fakes, which I'll talk about next week, 630 00:43:48,040 --> 00:43:50,759 Speaker 1: I do think that the younger generations will actually be 631 00:43:50,960 --> 00:43:54,440 Speaker 1: much better at filtering news. As far as I can tell, 632 00:43:54,719 --> 00:43:58,719 Speaker 1: the older generations are the ones stuck with the illusion 633 00:43:59,120 --> 00:44:01,400 Speaker 1: that if something is written and down it must be true, 634 00:44:01,760 --> 00:44:05,759 Speaker 1: whereas younger kids are more skeptical. So when I talk 635 00:44:05,840 --> 00:44:09,040 Speaker 1: with people young and old about truth on the Internet 636 00:44:09,120 --> 00:44:13,239 Speaker 1: and how to evaluate the flood of information, I emphasize 637 00:44:13,239 --> 00:44:16,759 Speaker 1: two points. First, to be critical of our own biases. 638 00:44:16,840 --> 00:44:20,400 Speaker 1: We all have biases, and these can lead us to 639 00:44:20,520 --> 00:44:23,600 Speaker 1: believe things that we shouldn't. So be aware of your 640 00:44:23,640 --> 00:44:27,200 Speaker 1: own biases and try to be objective when evaluating information. 641 00:44:27,719 --> 00:44:31,000 Speaker 1: And the second thing is to try to engage in 642 00:44:31,239 --> 00:44:33,600 Speaker 1: dialogue with people you trust and who you think are 643 00:44:33,640 --> 00:44:37,000 Speaker 1: smart and who are on the other side of an issue. 644 00:44:37,600 --> 00:44:41,560 Speaker 1: Try to steal man the other side. If you haven't 645 00:44:41,560 --> 00:44:45,040 Speaker 1: heard that term. This is the opposite of straw manning, 646 00:44:45,560 --> 00:44:49,200 Speaker 1: which is a technique for misrepresenting an opponent's argument to 647 00:44:49,239 --> 00:44:53,200 Speaker 1: make it easier to attack. Steal manning is a technique 648 00:44:53,239 --> 00:44:57,520 Speaker 1: for strengthening an opponent's argument so you can better understand it. 649 00:44:58,320 --> 00:45:02,480 Speaker 1: To steal man and argue in you need to identify 650 00:45:02,600 --> 00:45:06,200 Speaker 1: the premises and the conclusion, and you need to work 651 00:45:06,200 --> 00:45:10,080 Speaker 1: to understand the assumptions that underlie the argument. This allows 652 00:45:10,120 --> 00:45:14,239 Speaker 1: you to try to understand the argument from your opponent's perspective. 653 00:45:14,480 --> 00:45:16,759 Speaker 1: I'm not saying you have to come to a conclusion 654 00:45:16,760 --> 00:45:19,399 Speaker 1: of agreeing with the other person, but this is an 655 00:45:19,440 --> 00:45:23,480 Speaker 1: extremely valuable technique to say, Okay, I'm going to put 656 00:45:23,480 --> 00:45:27,040 Speaker 1: myself in a totally different pair of shoes, or more exactly, 657 00:45:27,080 --> 00:45:30,400 Speaker 1: in a different brain with a different world model, and 658 00:45:30,440 --> 00:45:34,240 Speaker 1: I'm going to see what my assumptions are and different 659 00:45:34,280 --> 00:45:37,080 Speaker 1: ways that I might believe this argument. Now, again, this 660 00:45:37,120 --> 00:45:39,200 Speaker 1: doesn't mean that in the end you need to adopt 661 00:45:39,320 --> 00:45:41,440 Speaker 1: that person's point of view, but I believe if you 662 00:45:42,120 --> 00:45:46,040 Speaker 1: take on this intellectual habit, you'll find yourself a little 663 00:45:46,080 --> 00:45:51,640 Speaker 1: more mature in your worldviews. You'll be slightly less able 664 00:45:51,800 --> 00:45:54,800 Speaker 1: to say that you think some complex situation is actually 665 00:45:54,800 --> 00:45:59,200 Speaker 1: really simple and hence less willing to dehumanize some other 666 00:45:59,400 --> 00:46:04,200 Speaker 1: group of humans. So let's wrap up today's episode. As 667 00:46:04,239 --> 00:46:06,920 Speaker 1: I mentioned last week, I got interested in this question 668 00:46:07,040 --> 00:46:10,839 Speaker 1: because several colleagues called me in twenty twenty and asked 669 00:46:10,880 --> 00:46:13,880 Speaker 1: if I would be on a grant with them to 670 00:46:13,920 --> 00:46:17,319 Speaker 1: restore truth in the media and on the Internet. And 671 00:46:17,360 --> 00:46:21,440 Speaker 1: I thought the idea was a little misguided because fundamentally 672 00:46:21,440 --> 00:46:25,120 Speaker 1: it rested on a poor memory of what truth used 673 00:46:25,160 --> 00:46:30,520 Speaker 1: to be, a retrospective romanticization. The key with the Internet 674 00:46:31,120 --> 00:46:34,200 Speaker 1: is that there's good and bad, but on balance, it 675 00:46:34,239 --> 00:46:37,839 Speaker 1: strikes me as clear that it comes out positively. So 676 00:46:38,000 --> 00:46:42,040 Speaker 1: when a pundit asserts that the Internet is responsible, in 677 00:46:42,160 --> 00:46:46,120 Speaker 1: part or and whole for our perceived decline into a 678 00:46:46,239 --> 00:46:50,800 Speaker 1: post truth world, I interpret that that statement stems from 679 00:46:51,160 --> 00:46:56,360 Speaker 1: ignorance about pre Internet history. As a history buff, I 680 00:46:56,400 --> 00:46:59,640 Speaker 1: really asked myself what was the world like pre and 681 00:46:59,719 --> 00:47:02,560 Speaker 1: post Internet? And I hope I've convinced you even a 682 00:47:02,560 --> 00:47:06,400 Speaker 1: little bit. I hope I've reminded you about how much 683 00:47:06,600 --> 00:47:10,680 Speaker 1: worse the world was pre Internet. And I hope I've 684 00:47:10,719 --> 00:47:13,319 Speaker 1: convinced you even a little bit that the Internet may 685 00:47:13,480 --> 00:47:18,040 Speaker 1: actually be the most important tool we've ever had for 686 00:47:18,680 --> 00:47:23,520 Speaker 1: surfacing truth. Essentially, it's impossible now for a government to 687 00:47:23,640 --> 00:47:28,239 Speaker 1: control the news that we are exposed to. Instead, a 688 00:47:28,400 --> 00:47:34,239 Speaker 1: million flashlights on the ground will end up shedding light. Now, 689 00:47:34,280 --> 00:47:36,280 Speaker 1: it goes without saying that when you have a million 690 00:47:36,280 --> 00:47:40,200 Speaker 1: people swinging flashlights around, there's a challenge that we face, 691 00:47:40,280 --> 00:47:44,080 Speaker 1: which is whose flashlight being? Do you believe? And obviously 692 00:47:44,520 --> 00:47:49,799 Speaker 1: there are plenty of misinformants and disinformants, just like there 693 00:47:49,840 --> 00:47:53,360 Speaker 1: have always been, But at least now we have the 694 00:47:53,520 --> 00:47:58,440 Speaker 1: possibility of getting exposed to different points of view. And 695 00:47:58,520 --> 00:48:01,320 Speaker 1: again I know that most people people will not look 696 00:48:01,360 --> 00:48:06,200 Speaker 1: for different points of view, but happily it's generally impossible 697 00:48:06,280 --> 00:48:08,480 Speaker 1: to not get hit in the face with different points 698 00:48:08,480 --> 00:48:12,680 Speaker 1: of view, at least sometimes when you're surfing around and 699 00:48:12,760 --> 00:48:15,440 Speaker 1: it might make you mad to see some other viewpoint 700 00:48:15,840 --> 00:48:19,480 Speaker 1: and your best interpretation is that they are deceitful, lyars 701 00:48:19,600 --> 00:48:23,440 Speaker 1: or misinformed. But at least that point of view enters 702 00:48:23,480 --> 00:48:28,239 Speaker 1: your hopper and the possibility at least exists to incorporate 703 00:48:28,280 --> 00:48:32,080 Speaker 1: it into your consideration. So as you can see, I'm 704 00:48:32,239 --> 00:48:37,040 Speaker 1: generally optimistic about the Internet and the existence of this technology. 705 00:48:37,960 --> 00:48:40,880 Speaker 1: But finally this all leads us to the next question, 706 00:48:41,000 --> 00:48:45,319 Speaker 1: the next era of invention, which is what happens now 707 00:48:45,360 --> 00:48:49,600 Speaker 1: that we have AI on the radar, And that is 708 00:48:49,760 --> 00:48:57,000 Speaker 1: next week's episode. See you then go to eagleman dot 709 00:48:57,000 --> 00:49:01,000 Speaker 1: com slash podcast for more information and to find further reading. 710 00:49:01,719 --> 00:49:05,719 Speaker 1: Send me an email at podcast at eagleman dot com 711 00:49:05,760 --> 00:49:08,960 Speaker 1: with questions or discussion and I'll be making episodes in 712 00:49:09,000 --> 00:49:13,320 Speaker 1: which I address those until next time. I'm David Eagleman 713 00:49:13,480 --> 00:49:15,360 Speaker 1: and this is Inner Cosmos.